its rebellion, its subtle skill in dividing the elements of human
passion, its care for physical beauty, its worship of the body,
which penetrated the early literature of Italy, and finds an echo
even in Dante.

That Abelard is not mentioned in the Divine Comedy may appear
a singular omission to the reader of Dante, who seems to have
inwoven into the texture of his work whatever had impressed him
as either effective in colour or spiritually significant among the
recorded incidents of actual life. Nowhere in his great poem do
we find the name, nor so much as an allusion to the story of [6]
one who had left so deep a mark on the philosophy of which
Dante was an eager student, of whom in the Latin Quarter, and
from the lips of scholar or teacher in the University of Paris,
during his sojourn among them, he can hardly have failed to hear.
We can only suppose that he had indeed considered the story and
the man, and abstained from passing judgment as to his place in
the scheme of "eternal justice."

In the famous legend of Tannhauser, the erring knight makes his
way to Rome, to seek absolution at the centre of Christian
religion. "So soon," thought and said the Pope, "as the staff in
his hand should bud and blossom, so soon might the soul of
Tannhauser be saved, and no sooner"; and it came to pass not
long after that the dry wood of a staff which the Pope had carried
in his hand was covered with leaves and flowers. So, in the
cloister of Godstow, a petrified tree was shown of which the nuns
told that the fair Rosamond, who had died among them, had
declared that, the tree being then alive and green, it would be
changed into stone at the hour of her salvation. When Abelard